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KNEES UP DOC

No real posts of late due to excessive painkiller taking on my behalf that has kept me in a pleasant state of drowsiness All due to a double knee (as in both ) operation I underwent last Thursday. Time to scrape out all of the loose cartilage and stop the bone on bone scraping I've been dealing with for the past 5-6 years. Decades of sport and a couple of decades of standing in one spot cooking are the general cause of my current predicament.

Rolled into the hospital on Thursday, was placed in a holding ward and told to put on one of those "one size fits nobody" hospital gowns. Lounged around watching TV for 3 or so hours and then they rolled me into the operating theatre. Hadn't seen my doctor yet but I assumed he was turning up. Woke up around an hour later in the observation ward and then they rolled me into my room. Still no sign of my doctor, I assumed by the pain in my knees that he had turned up.

Later a student nurse rolled up to my bedside accompanied by a supervising nurse and started to take my obs. They did this almost every hour or so, standard procedure after an op. The nurses decided I should try and use the toilet, the nurse left to do something leaving me with the student nurse. I tried lifting my left leg but it was a dead weight so the student nurse started helping me off the bed by holding my left leg out over the edge and then, and I'm still not exactly sure why, she suddenly dropped the leg from around waist high and walked away.

I can’t actually describe in words the scream that came out of my mouth.

"Oh! What's wrong?" she said in a startled voice.

"You just dropped my leg" I grunted through gritted teeth.

"I'm so sorry" she said and then looked at me all confused. Confused on what she should do next. I could give her a few suggestions. Number 1 being stay the hell away from me.

Later she got tangled up in my fluid tube and yanked that out of the
connection, also later as she was doing my blood pressure the supervising nurse (who had by now returned in response to my banshee screaming) said “Did you write it down?”, she said “Oh um no”, nurse asks “What was it?”,
she goes “Um I dont remember”, so I go “130/100”. Nurse looks at me sheepishly
and says “Thank you”. Jeebus, I'm the one who's on the drugs. I decide to go to sleep in the hope that nobody will touch me whilst I sleep.

I'd asked for a private room, they gave me a 4 share. Which wasn't too bad, except that when I had decided to sleep I now found myself in the presence of 3 gents all snoring away in a disorganised symphony. A nurse came in around midnight and smiled at me, started laughing and pretended to be a conductor. If only it was Schumann's Spring Symphony and not the engine room of some Goliath like piece of machinery.

The next day was spent hanging out with the other 3 dudes in my ward, nice guys and we had a heap of laughs. Slowly one by one they were discharged, I was still waiting for my doctor to drop in and say go home, but to no avail. At 2pm one of the nurses actually rang my doctor who said "Oh he can go home, I'm not coming in" Awesome, so that's what you get for $1800.00, maybe I'd ordered the "no bedside manner option" I'm not sure.

So far so good, painkillers are extra strong, I've had some interesting conversations with a variety of people, who may not actually exist now that I look back. I've also found myself waking up whilst diving across my bed. Not much fun with sore swollen knees. I've since moved to Panadeine Forte and things have calmed down. My left knee is still swollen and sore, it did have extra work done to it, but I'm a bit concerned it hasn't gone down like the right one. Will ring my imaginary doctor tomorrow if it's still the same.

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